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Topic: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Topic: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

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Jeff Hill
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Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/5/2019 8:15:48 PM

From today's The Athletic. Actual article had some nice photos. Link below for those who are subscribers.

‘I played against Joe freaking Burrow’: How LSU’s Heisman favorite built his legend in southeast Ohio
By Jon Greenberg

ATHENS, Ohio — Tell people from Athens you want to talk about Joe Burrow, and all you need is one question and some time.

Where were you when LSU went into Tuscaloosa and rolled the Tide?

Trae Williams, a defensive back at Northwestern, was in Evanston, Illinois, having just lost the eighth game of his disappointing fifth-year senior season.

“I’m sitting there with my roommates, and obviously those are some of my best friends, and they were cheering for him like they know him too,” said Williams, an Athens High classmate of Burrow. “That’s just how we are, like, that’s my boy, so that’s their boy too.”

The Luehrman twins, Adam and Ryan, having played a game on Wednesday, were there in Athens. First, at an Ohio University football practice, where a trainer dispatched first-half updates, including Burrow’s two touchdown passes and LSU’s six scoring drives.

They hurried back to their apartment to watch the second half with another former teammate from Athens High to celebrate LSU’s 46-41 victory.

Ryan Adams and Nate White, who coached Joe Burrow at Athens High, were at their respective homes for the entire game.

“There were several people around town that had parties,” White said. “But I really enjoyed just my wife and me on our small couch taking it all in. I loved watching it very closely without any distractions.”

Zacciah Saltzman, whose Georgetown football career ended early because of injuries, was on the scene, sitting in the at Bryant-Denny Stadium stands in Tuscaloosa with Burrow’s older brothers Jamie and Dan, and their parents, Jimmy and Robin. Saltzman was on the receiving end of Burrow’s passes at Athens, but still was slack-jawed at witnessing his former QB going 31-of-39 for 393 yards and three scores with no interceptions.

“I was like, ‘Man, who does this against ’Bama?’” Saltzman said.

For family and friends, Burrow’s ascension to Heisman favorite and potential top draft pick makes perfect sense. Yet, as Burrow stands on the precipice of leading LSU to a SEC title and possible national championship, just how his career has fallen into place seems inexplicable.

“I’m not a guy who goes to church every Sunday,” Adams said recently from his office off of the Athens Middle School gym. “I don’t say this to everyone. But it’s almost divine intervention.”

Whether at Tony’s Tavern, Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism or the halls of the middle school, people are talking about the community’s favorite son. They put up marquee signs, like the ones at Gigi’s Diner and a drive-thru liquor store; and they plant purple-and-gold flags in front of their houses.

The local Walmart now sells LSU gear. That’s a detail that Joe’s friends love to share.

“How nuts is that?” Saltzman said.

Athens is a postcard college town in the heart of a very poor part of Appalachia. The scenery is beautiful, from foliage in Wayne National Forest to the gorge and waterfalls of Old Man’s Cave. But southeast Ohio has poverty rates more than twice the national average, and Athens County is the most impoverished in the state, with 31.2 percent of residents living below the poverty line.

In the center of this struggling region sits Ohio University, which employs 4,125 residents, more than the county’s next 14 employers combined. The 20,000 students who rotate in and out of town nearly outnumber the 24,000 townsfolk. This mix of stable university jobs amid economic strife, of transient students living among generations of families, creates a unique community.

“It’s really tough to explain Athens,” Saltzman said. “I talked to Trae about this, because he goes to another very wealthy high academic school, and there’s really no way for people to understand what it was like growing up in Athens. I just tell them we’re from a small town and leave it at that. But it was a cool place to grow up.”

Adams, a native of the area, has become a bit of an amateur sociologist, watching how kids interact as they negotiate their early teenage years.

“It’s an interesting dynamic, how some kids can relate across the board, and other ones kind of stay in their safe zone,” he said. “From the time that Joey came in here, in regular phys-ed class, he had a way to cross all those different boundaries. And even more, he was very sympathetic to those that weren’t as athletically gifted or affluent. He had a little bit of a soft spot for those guys and would always pick them to be on his team.”

Like any gym teacher worth their whistle, Adams likes to keep teams even. But when they did three-on-three basketball, Burrow asked to choose his team.

“He picked two kids that are probably the least athletic in his class,” Adams said. “Well, they win every game.”

So the next game, Adams changed the rules. Burrow couldn’t score two baskets in a row.

“He’s tossing the ball off,” Adams said. “Nobody sets picks in middle school. He’s setting picks, this, that and the other. They clean house, right? They win every game.”

Adams smiled as he recalled this story, clear as day almost a decade later. The next time Burrow’s team played, he wasn’t allowed to score at all.

“And, by God, he got those two kids to play their butts off,” he said. “And he’s setting screens and giving them little cherry-pick shots off each side of the basket. They won every game.”

This year’s LSU squad has just one other player from Ohio. Last year’s had none. Burrow came into a proud program without much of a college reputation. He was an Ohio guy who didn’t win a job at Ohio State and now had to transfer. Knowing this, Saltzman said he was curious to learn how Burrow won over his new team in Baton Rouge.

“It’s interesting hearing about how he went into a big-time program like that and established himself as a leader. How do you do that?” Saltzman said. “He won every sprint over the summer and then people see, ‘Oh, you’re tough,’ and then he can start to give them his personality and then become friends.

“He’s great at that stuff. When you go to the NFL, how do you go to a new locker room and be the guy? And that’s something I think he’s super natural with.”

The house on the outskirts of Athens is on a quiet, well-kept street that would fit into any American suburb. A small LSU flag is planted next to a faded Ohio one in the front yard. A football wreath and a purple LSU banner adorn the door.
Many coaches at Ohio University live in The Plains, a few miles north of town and campus. The Burrows settled here when Jimmy got the defensive coordinator job under Frank Solich in 2005, toting along their elementary school son. It’s important to remember Burrow isn’t just some local kid gifted with a big arm, a predestined gift from the football gods. No, Burrow was bred for this. Wherever he lived, from Iowa to Nebraska to North Dakota to Ohio– he was going to prosper.

“He grew up in it,” Solich said. “He grew up in that kind of atmosphere.”

The Burrows are a college football family. Jimmy, a Mississippi native, played in the mid-70s at Nebraska as Johnny Rodgers won a Heisman. His two older sons (Joe’s half-brothers) played football at Nebraska too, and Jimmy coached there for two years when Joe was just four and five years old. There should be a picture, somewhere, of a young Joe and 2001 Heisman winner Eric Crouch, Jimmy said, he just has to look for it.

“He’s got football in his blood,” Williams said. “His brothers were really good athletes. His dad was. Grandparents were. He’s just got it in him, and he really eats, sleeps, breathes it.”

What was a young Joe Burrow like? Were the signs there?

“I remember thinking this is just an intense little kid,” Saltzman said. “He was just super-serious and he had a mentality that was a lot different from the little guys running around playing basketball.”

“He was competitive,” Jimmy Burrow said. “You know, when you’re not supposed to be keeping score in those early soccer games, and he would know exactly the score and you know he likes to compete and he likes to win. And I think that’s OK. That’s a good thing.”

Athens High always has Ohio University coaches’ kids suiting up, but many don’t stay. They show promise as sophomores then a parent gets a new job. None, however, were as good as Joe Burrow.

Solich stayed at Ohio for 15 years, recently breaking the Mid-American Conference’s record for wins. Jimmy Burrow was at his side until this year.

“My parents would tell me, ‘You know Joe’s dad will probably find another job,’ ” Ryan Luehrman said. “And eventually, he’s here for the long haul.”

Solich embraced a family atmosphere. If OU was on the road for a Saturday game, he would let Jimmy Burrow and defensive line coach Jesse Williams, Trae’s dad, meet up with the team later so they could watch their sons play for Athens High. The mid-week “MACtion” games made it a little tougher because of the mixed-up schedule, but Burrow doesn’t think he missed more than a couple of his son’s games during his junior and senior seasons.

“I wasn’t like a helicopter dad or you know, a taskmaster,” he said. “I didn’t say ‘Hey, you gotta come watch this tape.’ I’d say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna watch your game, you wanna watch with me?’ And he usually would, and I would point out little things like protecting the ball and making good decisions.”

Jimmy retired after last season so he and Robin, a nearby middle school principal, could spend this year following their son at LSU. He expected to host tailgates and spend hours driving through the South, both of which he’s done. What he didn’t account for was the barrage of text messages.

“If I don’t turn my phone off here, it’s going to be crazy,” he said mid-interview. “You’d realize what I’m doing these days.”

The elder Burrow has become de facto spokesman for his son, and his days are packed with interviews. He does a weekly hit on a Baton Rouge radio station. Last year, he refused almost all interview requests so as not to take away attention from the Bobcats. Now, he’s like a tour guide of his son’s life.

“Last night it was ESPN, you’re here, CBS is here in the morning,” Burrow said from his kitchen. “ESPN is here again tomorrow afternoon. The Washington Post was here last week.”

When Ohio played in nationally televised “MACtion” games this season, the ESPN producers asked if Jimmy would be around. He was interviewed in back-to-back games as the announcers were thrilled to talk about Joe and LSU and not, say, two MAC teams.

A shrine to the family’s athletic achievements sits in the basement of the Burrow house. Jerseys are tacked up on the brown paneled walls, including Jimmy’s from the Packers and the Canadian Football League and the elder Burrow boys’ uniforms from Nebraska. A poster of Joe in a basketball uniform lays on the ping-pong table.

At the far end of the room near the TV and video game system are the trophies and plaques. The Ohio High School Athletic Association doesn’t make a trophy for its Mr. Football award, so Jimmy made one himself, a football on a pedestal.

In the upstairs living room is Joe’s Fiesta Bowl MVP trophy, one that Jimmy didn’t make to order. He lugged that home from Phoenix in his backpack and let the airline workers take pictures with it. Now it sits by the fireplace.

The photographer taking pictures of him mentions she’s from Cincinnati. Jimmy smiles. The Bengals are in line for the top pick in the draft. The drive from Athens to Cincinnati is a lot shorter than the drive to Baton Rouge.

Before he was Burrow’s offensive coordinator, Nate White was a quarterback at Athens High in the late 1990s, when a four-win season was considered a success.

“We weren’t very good at all,” said White, who took over as head coach of Athens High this season.

After an uneventful career as a backup quarterback at nearby Marietta College, White got his first high school job at Tri-Valley High School in Dresden and started running a veer offense, something fairly typical in the world of Ohio prep football. But he eventually transitioned into an offense with spread concepts.

When he was hired at Athens before Burrow’s sophomore year, White approached Adams about running a spread-based offense. Adams had already started tinkering with those concepts and gave him the go-ahead. It would prove fateful for Burrow, who was already progressing as a quarterback.

That summer, Burrow had led Athens’ 7-on-7 team and White saw him slicing apart teams. White was building a playbook that wasn’t overly complex, but it required an accurate quarterback.

“It was the middle of July and I remember saying, ‘This kid is really good,’” he said.

He also had two tall receivers in the Luehrmans, another solid wideout in Saltzman and Williams, the new kid in town, in the backfield. It was an unusually talented core of players.

“We went to the state championship with two running plays,” White said. “We had zone and we had quarterback trap off of zone. The rest was passing stuff.”

Even the passing plays were basic. But like any good offense, the key was Athens could expertly execute just about every play out of multiple formations.

“Very rarely in high school football is everyone covered,” White said. “You watch high school games, there’s always someone open but it takes a special kid to always find the guy.

“In practice, I’d say why didn’t you throw it to this? Joe would essentially say, I don’t know this well enough yet. We’ve got to talk. We’d stop right there and fix it. Just the poise and confidence to say, ‘I don’t know this well enough. I don’t want to do anything else until I get this.’ As a 15-, 16-year-old kid, that’s so rare.”

Burrow threw for 4,437 yards and 63 touchdowns his senior year. His 11,428 passing yards are the fourth-highest in Ohio history, and his 156 touchdowns are the third-highest, behind the famous (in Ohio football circles anyway) Mauk brothers, Maty and Ben.

In 2014, Athens High scored a state-record 861 points, 57.4 a game, just 4 points shy of the school’s 22-3 basketball team. Yes, Burrow led that team in scoring with 19.3 points per game.

They beat Wellston 82-7 and followed that up with a 77-14 win against River Valley. They scored more than 60 points in a game six times, putting up 66 on the road in Zanesville. Their home games had a circus-like atmosphere, Saltzman said, and opponents were beaten before taking the field.

“I remember there were legit teams where these kids would put Sharpies in their socks, so when we’re in the handshake lines at the end of the games, Joe could sign their gloves and stuff,” Saltzman said. “I was like, this is absurd.”

“We were always kind of chasing the perfect game, where we’d score every drive and complete every ball,” White said. “It sounds crazy to say, but that was really the way he prepared and it rubbed off on everybody.”

Did it ever happen?

“We had a few where we scored every possession,” he said.

Williams, who played running back at Athens, could only remember one time when his quarterback was flustered. It came during a playoff game their senior season.

“The only time he’d ever been confused on what signal our coach was giving, I got confused,” Williams said. “I was like, Joe doesn’t know, then maybe I don’t know,” Williams said. “And the coach was freaking out, ‘Why aren’t you all running the play?’

“And Joe was like, ‘Dude, I don’t know what he’s talking about.’ I said, all right, I’m going to run a little swing and just throw it to me. He snaps the ball, looks at me, and then runs 70 yards for a touchdown.”

The ball would’ve been fine in Williams’ hands. His father was a well-traveled college assistant coach who had landed in Athens for Trae’s sophomore year. Fast and strong, Trae was a natural fit in White’s offense at running back and ran for 5,435 yards and 96 touchdowns in three years at Athens.

“If you called inside zone, Trae Williams was 70 yards and gone,” White said. “That might have happened 40 times in three years. He made calling plays easy. Just call ‘zone’ and he might score.”

Williams committed to Ohio as a running back, but backed out to attend Northwestern as a defensive back. Solich thought he had Williams, and he made sure the Bobcats were first to offer Burrow.

“Obviously it became clear that he was going to head to a Power 5 program and that Ohio State was very interested in him,” Solich said in his office recently. “And we understood his decision. So we were patting him on the back and following his career from that point on.

“If Ohio State hadn’t made an offer,” Jimmy Burrow said, “we still thought maybe he would have chosen Ohio, as opposed to a lot of the Power 5 schools. Just because he loved the Bobcats so much.”

Athens High lost Burrow’s first game as a starter when he was a sophomore, but then won every regular-season game heading into his senior season. Granted, the competition wasn’t stiff in the Tri-Valley Conference, and when Athens faced better teams, it had lost in the regional finals in 2012 and 2013. That left the team feeling as if it had something to prove in 2014.

“Before the year, Joe and Trae called everyone together,” Adam Luehrman said.

“I remember Joe was like what’s our goal for this season,” Ryan Luehrman said. “And I said regional championship. He asked, ‘Why not further?’ And I was silent. You got me there. Yeah. Why are we limiting ourselves?”

Adams had already set up a test that would push his team. That spring, he got a call from Reno Saccoccia, coach of the Steubenville High Big Red, who was looking for a midseason opponent. If Adams’s team wanted a challenge, here it was: In the previous 10 seasons, Steubenville had a record of 115-16 and two state titles. The school was also embroiled in the aftermath of a sexual assault by two football players in 2012, a case that became a touchstone across the country and that cast the community’s legendary rabid support of football in a different light.

Athens knew that Harding Stadium at night would not be an easy environment.

“Steubenville was a measuring stick for us,” Saltzman said. “Let’s see if we’re the real deal. We’ve been playing in southeast Ohio killing people, let’s go play an historic program and show all of Ohio what we’re made of.”

Steubenville is an old steel town along the Ohio River, about three hours from Athens. If you followed the Athens team bus north, you’d drive the Lou “The Toe” Groza highway through Martins Ferry, the focus of the poem that opens up the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Friday Night Lights.

Athens needed this win for more than just street cred. A weighted playoff points system and Athens’ weak conference made running the table the only certain path to the playoffs. The Athens players remember the atmosphere when they arrived at Steubenville’s packed stadium: a loud marching band, home fans overflowing into the visiting bleachers and a fire-breathing horse sitting atop the scoreboard.

“For a high school stadium, what an intimidating place to play,” White said. “I remember (aside) from the 40 to the other 40 on our visiting side were home fans. It was not ideal.”

“I realized exactly what we were stepping ourselves into when we got to Steubenville,” Adams said of a key detail left out of his conversations with Saccoccia. “It was homecoming. But apparently Coach Reno also didn’t realize what I was bringing on the bus.”

Despite a few uncharacteristic mistakes, Athens led 29-27 at halftime, helped in part by two long scores: a 70-yard zone run up the middle by Williams and a 48-yard sideline catch and tightrope act by Ryan Luehrman. With rain about to pour, Adams felt like he needed to fire up his team in the visiting locker room.

“I paced a lot, like all coaches do,” Adams said. “And, I went back outside to check conditions one last time. And, the rain was blowing horizontally, I mean, it was 20-, 30-mile-an-hour winds. And I said, ‘Boys, you know, if you’ve ever wanted any more adversity, man. You have got it. It is all here tonight.’”

What was his speech like? Memorable, even five years later.

“At halftime,” Saltzman said, “I was sitting next to Joe and Trae, and Coach Adams is like ‘All right boys, we gotta do this for coal country. We’re from coal country and they’re from steel country. We’ve got to show them what’s up with the coal guys.’ And we’re getting hyped up and Trae looks at me and Joe looks at me and we’re like, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we don’t come from coal mining families. But we’re still going to do this shit.’ We were going crazy, like ‘We have to do this for the coal miners!’”

Athens still led by two going into the fourth quarter, then scored 22 unanswered points as Burrow threw a 43-yard touchdown to Adam Luerhman before scoring on a 48-yard keeper to seal a 58-42 win. In the crucible of his high school career, Burrow threw for 360 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 83 yards and two more scores.

“I don’t know if it was Joe’s best night numbers-wise,” White said, “but it was probably his most dominant performance in high school.”

Dmitri Collaros, now a second baseman at Division III Otterbein University, was the Big Red quarterback that night. He knows a pro quarterback when he sees one (his older brother Zach won the 2019 Grey Cup as the starter for Winnipeg), and was amazed at not just the throws he saw from Burrow, but the elusiveness, the toughness. He saw defensive linemen and linebackers bounce off Burrow when he ran the ball. On one fourth-quarter carry, it took a gang of five Big Red defenders to stop Burrow’s forward progress 20 yards downfield. They never brought him down.

Five years later, Collaros jokes that he was a cocky high schooler and when they watched tape of Burrow before the game, he told teammates, “I’m better than this guy.”

He wanted to believe it, too. Even after the game, he jokingly repeated his bluff, until one of his coaches called him out.

“He said, ‘Can you take a three-step drop and throw a 15-yard out to the opposite hash mark?’” Collaros recalled. “I said, ‘No.’”

How many high school quarterbacks can?

No matter what happens this December in New York City, there will likely never be a person who has been named Mr. Football, Gatorade Player of the Year, Heisman Trophy winner and Gridiron Glory Player of the Year.
Why?

Because Burrow never won the Gridiron Glory award. Not as a sophomore or a junior (when he won his first Gatorade award) or even as a senior, when he was named the best player in the entire football-crazy state.

Gridiron Glory is a weekly TV show put on by broadcasting students at Ohio University. It’s a staple of southeast Ohio football.

But the player of the year award was, until 2015, voted on solely by fans, and as Karli Bell, a former student who worked on the show in 2014, explained, fans of other schools would vote more often than ones in Athens. That’s how Hunter Sexton, the quarterback of Jackson High, beat Burrow for this award his senior year.

In fact, Burrow wasn’t even up for the award because the Gridiron Glory staff oddly nominated the whole Athens offense. Sexton, who put up around 1,500 combined yards compared to Burrow’s 5,000 or so, is now a relief pitcher at Marshall. And, yes, he gets a kick out of beating Burrow for the award. So do his friends.

“They joke about it,” Sexton said. “They ask why I didn’t end up playing football in college.”

Sexton’s team at Jackson was no joke, though. Two of his teammates that year went to Division I schools after Jackson went 10-0 in the regular season and won a playoff game.

“We were the two top teams in that part of the state,” he said. “Just to see that sort of talent and know he was going to OSU. It’s kind of awesome I ended up winning.”

While his friends joke that he could’ve won the Heisman, Sexton appreciates the differences between him and Burrow as teenage quarterbacks.

“I mean, honestly, you could tell he was on another level,” Sexton said, echoing a refrain you hear from practically every quarterback who had to match up against Burrow.

Athens had to come back from a 17-7 halftime deficit against two-time defending state champ St. Vincent-St. Mary to make it to the 2014 state championship game. SVSM quarterback Dom Davis looks back and remembers how calm Burrow and Athens remained coming out for the third quarter.

“You had that feeling of impending doom coming out of halftime,” he said. “Maybe we just pissed him off. The second half was all him. It was a one-man wrecking crew.”

Davis said during the game he stood on the sideline waiting for Burrow to make a mistake, to throw off his back foot into coverage, something. But even when Burrow did make a play under duress, Davis remembers him putting the ball where only his receiver could catch it. Burrow would pick apart a defense with quick slants, screens and hitches “and then all of a sudden, they throw a 30-yard bomb and it would be a completed pass.”

Athens won, 34-31.

“It’s an hour bus ride home,” Davis said. “And I was thinking that dude will end up winning the Heisman and be the first pick of the draft,” Davis said. “I thought he was that good.”

Now, five years later, he watches LSU games like everyone else, appreciating what he saw then, what he sees now and whether he’s going to prove prophetic.

“I played against Joe freaking Burrow,” he said.

The eye test favored perennial football power Toledo Central Catholic in the 2014 state championship game .
“The biggest thing I remember pregame is looking at their team and our team and getting the vibe that everyone in the stadium thinks this is not going to go well,” White said. “It kind of looked different.”

The Division III state championship game was at Ohio Stadium. Burrow had verbally committed to the Buckeyes the spring of his junior year, but signing day was months away. So the recruiting was still ongoing.

“It was very cold,” Jimmy Burrow said. “(Ohio State’s offensive coordinator) Tom Herman sat with us during the game and we had to give him a blanket.”

A little more than 10,000 people filled Ohio Stadium that day, and Athens had a sizable contingent, and not just from the town. On the bus ride out of southeast Ohio, Burrow and his teammates saw rivals rally in support.

“Logan High School put up a banner on the overpass on Rt. 33 going up to Columbus,” Ryan Luehrman said. “It was amazing, there was a whole convoy of fire trucks.”

In a show of solidarity, Sexton, still basking in his Gridiron Glory, showed up in Columbus with his Jackson teammates. They weren’t alone. It felt like all of southeast Ohio was following Athens High.

“Football in Athens historically hadn’t been very popular,” Adam Luehrman said. “But I remember the state championship game, there were so many rows of people, alums in their old varsity jackets, it was a sea of gold and green.”

On the field, the game was as advertised, a shootout between two teams of distinct styles. State championship records fell. Toledo Central Catholic old-schooled its way to 501 rushing yards. Athens threw for 446 yards and six touchdowns.

According to the game story in the Columbus Dispatch, only two second-half possessions didn’t result in points, including Burrow’s second interception of the season. But Toledo Central Catholic had the last opportunity, and scored an 8-yard touchdown run with 15 seconds left for a 56-52 win.

“That game is such a blur now,” Ryan Luehrman said. “Those last few plays, those were the slowest seconds of my life. It was a heartbreaker. It took me a long time to quit replaying it in my head.”

“I still haven’t watched it,” Adam Luehrman said. “I watched plays when I did my highlight reel, but I haven’t watched the final plays yet.”

Adams said he was nervous about what his players would say in a press conference after the game. But they handled it well. As Jimmy Burrow recalls, his son said, “it’s the worst day of his life.”

“Coach (Urban) Meyer, on our official visit, which might’ve been like a week or two later, said that the most impressive thing about the whole game was Joe’s interview after the game,” Jimmy Burrow said. “He had watched the press conference and he thought Joe handled it the way you would want someone to handle it.”

Burrow signed with Ohio State the following winter. He redshirted, excelling off the field in Columbus and in the weight room, but when it came time to earn a starting job, a hand injury in August 2017 hurt his chances. Before his redshirt junior year, with a degree already in hand, he would be eligible immediately if he decided to transfer.
When it came time to choose, Jimmy said OU came up again, but considering that the Bobcats had a solid returning starter in Nathan Rourke, the coach in him didn’t feel comfortable pushing it. And Ohio didn’t really fit with Joe’s vision. He wanted to win a national championship, not a MAC title.

That he chose LSU over Cincinnati was a bit of a surprise, though, given the Tigers’ longtime infatuation with the run. But Ed Orgeron promised they’d open up the passing game, which he did this season with the addition of passing guru Joe Brady.

“Rarely is Joe is overly excited,” White said of Burrow. “But this summer he was drawing stuff on board to show me what they’re doing. ‘We’re going to throw it around and be one back or empty.’ He was very confident they were going to change.”

LSU becoming a high-octane passing team is about as shocking as Athens High going to the state championship. In 13 games last season, Burrow threw for just 2,894 yards, 16 touchdowns and five interceptions.

On Nov. 30, through 12 games, Burrow set the SEC single-season record for passing (4,336 yards), tied the mark for passing touchdowns (44) and still threw only six picks. His accuracy has been even more impressive than his totals — his completion percentage has shot from 58.7 percent in 2018 to a nation-leading 78.3 percent this fall.

“It literally looks like high school football in the SEC, which is bananas,” said Saltzman, who attended a number of games in person this season. “This guy is literally throwing the same completion percentage in the SEC as he did in high school against the TVC. It’s hilarious.”

Crazy as this seems, are the people who knew him then surprised by the heights he’s reached now? No, not really.

“He’s a genius,” said Williams, who texts regularly with Burrow and his other Athens teammates. “He knows everything. These are the same things that I’ve seen him do when I was literally right there beside him.”

“I remember the first summer I came to Georgetown,” Saltzman said. ”It was Joe’s redshirt freshman year at Ohio State, and we were talking about good people we played with. My friends from New Jersey played against guys like Jabrill Peppers. I was like, ‘You know what guys, I’ll tell you what right now, the quarterback I played with is going to win the Heisman before it’s all said and done.’ They were like ‘Nah, no shot, who is this kid?’ I was like ‘Just wait on it.'”

Had Burrow succeeded like this at Ohio State, the results would’ve seemed more in line with all of those expectations like Saltzman’s. But in some ways, Burrow dominating at a place like LSU makes it even sweeter.

“It’s still absolutely a pinch yourself, can’t believe it’s happening kind of deal,” White said.

“It’s been a complete joy for me,” Adams said. “I’ve had all the time in the world to really just bask in these games.”

Whenever Burrow comes back to Athens, Ryan Luehrman said they mostly lay low at the twins’ apartment. When they don’t, like when they went to a high school road game last season, Burrow is hit with a barrage of selfie requests.
Burrow will never be just a kid from Athens again. As the stars align, the demands will only grow. A Heisman, the postseason, the NFL draft. Even after his first season at LSU, when he started all 13 games, he still lived a relatively normal life by college football standards.

“I went down to Baton Rouge over the summer,” Saltzman said, ‘and we were driving around and Joe’s like, ‘Man, I’m in Louisiana. How about that?’ Yeah, I never would’ve thought. This is pretty crazy.”

Solich has seen it all. He succeeded legendary Tom Osborne at Nebraska and won a Big 12 title two years later and averaged nine wins in six years. The fan base still turned. When he first got to Athens in 2002, he said there were OSU flags everywhere. But they were eventually replaced by OU ones as his program started winning every year. He knows that fan bases are rarely built overnight, which makes those LSU flags around town all the more remarkable. Which is why next fall, those LSU flags will likely be replaced. Perhaps by Bengals flags.

But before Burrow thinks about the NFL, he has unfinished business. The key to Burrow’s decisions to both attend Ohio State and transfer to LSU were predicated on the chance to win a national championship. Now Burrow’s two schools, his past and his present, are first and second in the college football playoff rankings. And if Burrow ends up playing the Buckeyes for a national title?

“If that happens,” Adams said. “Every goddamn one of the stars aligned.”

https://theathletic.com/1420714/2019/12/05/i-played-again... /

rpbobcat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 6:35:09 AM

Great read.
Thanks for posting.

allen
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 11:12:28 AM

This belongs in the Athens classified’s forum, why are we talking about this on an Ohio football board. Joe Burrow needs to get some of that Mississippi out of him, his tweet game and heart could derail his future success

Last Edited: 12/6/2019 5:54:51 PM by allen

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

100%Cat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 3:23:47 PM

allen wrote:

This belongs in the Athens classified’s forum, why are we talking about this on an Ohio football board. Joe Burrow needs to get some golf that Mississippi out of him, his tweet game and heart could derail his future success

What did this kid do to hit you in the feels?

colobobcat66
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 4:43:14 PM

allen wrote:

I’m not as much into following Joe as some, as I was only a student at Ohio and not a long time Athens resident, but I do identify with the SE Ohio angle since that’s where I’m from. There’s enough in this article about Ohio university, current and former coaches and players to merit its inclusion on here IMHO. And if you’re into college football in general, it has to carry some interest.

The common refrain “if you don’t like it, don’t look at it” may be appropriate.

Last Edited: 12/6/2019 6:00:31 PM by colobobcat66

allen
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 5:54:11 PM

100%Cat wrote:

allen wrote:

What did this kid do to hit you in the feels?

He at one point said he didn’t know where Athens was, he posted racist tweets and when I posted that he should come here based on his progress at OSU, everybody said that Burrow related stuff didn’t belong on the site

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

Mark Lembright '85
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 6:02:54 PM

I enjoyed the article too. I’m also no native of Athens and only lived there 4 wonderful years, but was surprised to read that Burrow probably would’ve gone to Ohio had OSU not offered a scholly and that he loves OU. That’s awesome! I assumed (stupidly, I admit) that he had no use for Ohio and considered it the last place he’d go to play football. Given that he could have gone to virtually ANY OTHER P5 SCHOOL and Ohio comes in 2nd after OSU to him, I find that fantastic and root for him more.

Last Edited: 12/6/2019 6:03:30 PM by Mark Lembright '85

100%Cat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/6/2019 6:15:00 PM

allen wrote:

100%Cat wrote:

allen wrote:

What did this kid do to hit you in the feels?

So it’s mainly stuff you’re holding against him that was from social media when he was 13-14 years old. I guess in todays society, to some thats fair. I guess those people never did anything dumb when they were in puberty...

OU_Country
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 10:41:28 AM

colobobcat66 wrote:

allen wrote:

This is just allen being allen. Next he'll bring up something about someone being mediocre. ;)

rpbobcat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 10:57:34 AM

One comment I didn't like from the game Saturday's game announcers,not from Burrow,was that he only received a "pity scholarship offer from Ohio University".

CatsUp
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 11:23:12 AM

rpbobcat wrote:

One comment I didn't like from the game Saturday's game announcers,not from Burrow,was that he only received a "pity scholarship offer from Ohio University".

This bothered me at first but I’m thinking this was within the context of only receiving an offer from his dad’s team.

BillyTheCat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 11:28:30 AM

rpbobcat wrote:

One comment I didn't like from the game Saturday's game announcers,not from Burrow,was that he only received a "pity scholarship offer from Ohio University".

Well, first off that comment was simply not true. OHIO was the first to offer him, and he had quite a few offers. No major P5's until Herman convinced Urban to make an offer, but he had several P5 offers. Simply sensational reporting and poor choice of wording.

allen
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 12:26:21 PM

OU_Country wrote:

colobobcat66 wrote:

allen wrote:

This is just allen being allen. Next he'll bring up something about someone being mediocre. ;)

Is it like that OU country? Lol. My comment made because when we talked about his recruitment and his transfer, people said that the conversation did not belong on this forum and they have now done a 360. Burrow made a great decision to transfer and he will win the Heisman and be a top10 pick. Kudos to him and his family.

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

OhioCatFan
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/9/2019 9:36:52 PM

BillyTheCat wrote:

rpbobcat wrote:

One comment I didn't like from the game Saturday's game announcers,not from Burrow,was that he only received a "pity scholarship offer from Ohio University".

Thanks for these details, BTC. I knew that statement wasn't accurate when I heard it, but I did not know these details. Maybe they'll get it right the next time they talk about his recruiting. Hope so.

The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA

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100%Cat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/10/2019 9:12:06 AM

OhioCatFan wrote:

BillyTheCat wrote:

rpbobcat wrote:

One comment I didn't like from the game Saturday's game announcers,not from Burrow,was that he only received a "pity scholarship offer from Ohio University".

I didn't like the wording CBS used, either. My interpretation was that it was more of a "we'll offer him, but he's going to a bigger program" type of offer. To me, that is not a pity offer. Token offer, maybe, but not pity.

Jeff Hill
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/12/2019 9:27:59 PM

Another article from today's The Athletic. This one focuses on Joe and his 2 brothers.

‘It doesn’t seem like reality’: Joe Burrow’s big brothers, former Nebraska players, cherish his path to Heisman

OMAHA, Neb. — Jamie Burrow, the 41-year-old brother of LSU quarterback Joe Burrow, started a few weeks ago to study up on the Heisman Trophy.

The elder Burrow reached out multiple times to his friend and former Nebraska teammate, Eric Crouch, the 2001 Heisman winner, with questions about the ceremony and to ask for advice on acceptable attire at events around the presentation of the award. Jamie wanted to know more about the voting process — how it breaks along regional boundaries and other historical items about the most prestigious honor in college football.

But in recent days, Jamie and Dan Burrow, Joe’s other brother, largely stopped worrying. They saw, like everyone else, that Joe was going to win the Heisman on Saturday night in New York, likely by one of the most sizable voting margins in the 85-year history of the trophy.

“It’s been absolutely incredible,” said Dan, 38.

Jamie and Dan Burrow, former Nebraska defenders, planned to travel this week to New York to celebrate the moment with Joe at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. They’ve tagged along for much of this football season with top-ranked LSU, set to play Oklahoma on Dec. 28 in a College Football Playoff semifinal.

Joe’s brothers were along for the ride, in fact, through early milestones in Joe’s life, his 2014 recruitment by Urban Meyer and Ohio State out of Athens, Ohio, and his 2017 transfer from the Buckeyes.

“We’re about as close as you can be, considering the age difference,” Jamie Burrow said.

This final chapter of Joe’s college career has rated as surreal for the Burrow family.

“We envisioned it,” Jamie Burrow said. “But thinking it’s a possibility and living it are two completely different things. Seeing what Joe has done isn’t surprising. But at the same time, it doesn’t seem like reality.”

Jamie played linebacker at Nebraska from 1997 to 2001, parallel to the career of Crouch, earning second-team All-Big 12 honors in his senior year as the Huskers started 11-0 and lost to ultra-talented Miami in the BCS championship game.

Dan walked on at Nebraska in 2000 and played through 2004 as a reserve defensive back.

Both elder Burrow brothers work in medical sales. Jamie lives in Omaha, Neb., with his wife, Codie, and two sons. Dan lives in Houston. He proposed last month to Jama Cash after the couple met in September 2018 when Dan traveled to Auburn to watch his brother’s third start for LSU.

“She’s a Tiger,” Dan said. “She’s just the wrong kind.”

So, you see, this journey alongside Joe has proven fruitful for the Burrows in unimaginable ways.

“It’s been special for so many reasons,” said Dan, who’s attended all but one game in Joe’s two seasons at LSU. “It really has brought our family closer. We are so spread out — in Texas, Ohio, Nebraska, Louisiana — that I’ve probably seen my dad and my brothers more this year than in any two- or three-year period over the last 15 years.”

Their father, Jimmy Burrow, also played at Nebraska, and he coached as a graduate assistant at the school before following Frank Solich to Ohio in 2005. Jimmy retired after the 2018 season.

Joe has said often that he hoped as a kid and while in high school to play for Nebraska. Former coach Bo Pelini did not recruit him as a four-star, dual-threat prospect five years ago. Current coach Scott Frost passed on Burrow as a potential transfer in the spring 2018, with Adrian Martinez new to the program in Lincoln.

The lack of attention from Nebraska stung the former Huskers in the family and pushed Joe Burrow to succeed.

“He might have turned a chip on his shoulder into a boulder just to help with motivation,” Jamie Burrow said. “Our family relates more to the underdog than the frontrunner.”

All of it makes Joe’s ascension at LSU feel even more sweet to the Burrows. And it’s not about to stop. His accuracy as a QB and mobility have propelled Burrow to the top of The Athletic’s 2020 NFL Mock Draft.

“This would be on the upper end of what we thought was possible,” Jamie Burrow said, “but I’d be lying to you if I said I thought it could never be a scenario.”

Joe was born in December 1996 to Jimmy and Robin Burrow, stepmother to Jamie and Dan. Jamie was a senior at Ames (Iowa) High School; Dan was a freshman. Jimmy coached at Iowa State. A few months later, Jamie left for Nebraska. He redshirted in 1997 as the Huskers, with Frost at QB, beat Tennessee for a share of the national title.

Soon, little Joe was visiting Jamie in Lincoln. When Jamie returned home to Ames, he occasionally baby sat. But Jamie paid little attention to the toddler. He’d put Joe’s favorite movie, “A Bug’s Life,” on TV and doze off, sometimes to awake alarmed that Joe had crawled up the stairs.

“It’s almost like Dan and I were not his brothers,” Jamie said. “We were sort of like these hybrid uncles.”

They stayed close as Joe grew into an elite athlete. The Burrows referred to Joe from a young age as “Super Burrow.”

“He has all of our strength and none of our weaknesses,” Jamie said.

Jamie, despite getting a brief taste of the NFL in 2002, was not blessed with superior athleticism. Dan lacked the size of his brothers.

“Joe got all the football IQ, competitive drive, leadership and intelligence,” Jamie said, “and then he got another level of athletic build and skill set.”

Early in 2018, after Meyer picked Dwayne Haskins instead of Burrow to replace J.T. Barrett at Ohio State, the Burrow brothers convened by conference call. Jamie and Dan advised Joe to look elsewhere. A few weeks later with Joe set to decide on his next school, Jamie called Dan. They put together a list of seven bullet points for Joe to consider — among them, the destination that would allow Joe an opportunity to play in the best program, against the best competition and to compete for the biggest prizes in college football.

Eighteen months later, look where he’s at.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my little brother was going to win (the Heisman),” Dan Burrow said. “And now to think it’s going be sitting in his house — or in my dad’s house — that’s crazy.”

https://theathletic.com/1455797/2019/12/12/nebraska-huske... /

ExCat21
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/14/2019 9:08:02 PM

So happy right now! Drinks up to the whole board!

BillyTheCat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/14/2019 11:40:54 PM

ExCat21 wrote:

So happy right now! Drinks up to the whole board!

Watch out! Realism and some folks just don’t jive.

OhioBobcat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/16/2019 6:38:55 PM

allen wrote:

OU_Country wrote:

colobobcat66 wrote:

allen wrote:

This is just allen being allen. Next he'll bring up something about someone being mediocre. ;)

I got into a pretty heated debate with you a couple years ago about how Burrow was “too good for Ohio.” Those were my EXACT words, I stood by them then and I sure as hell stand by them now!!! Back then I strongly stated he should transfer to a big time program and not crawl back to Athens to play in the MAC. I rest my case..... Just look at where that decision has led him now! Had he come back to Athens none of this would have happened to and for him. He’d have played in Detroit and would be getting ready for some crappy bowl that no one cares about, but instead, he won the frickin’ Heisman and is in the Playoffs and will likely be playing for a National Championship! I love Ohio as much as anyone, but it’s beyond clear he was - and is - way too good for Ohio. That isn’t even a strong opinion like it was two years ago, it’s 100% fact!

OhioCatFan
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/16/2019 10:44:05 PM

In my opinion, allen had a valid point in the original discussion. I’m not saying that Joey didn’t make the right decision for him, but he certainly wasn’t “too good for OHIO.” If you take that position, you’d have to say that Big Ben was too good for Miami. The guy was so good he lead Pittsburg to the Super Bowl as a rookie, the only NFL player ever to do that. When you saw him play in college you knew he’d be an NFL star. I suppose he could have transferred somewhere and won a Heisman, but he didn’t consider himself too good for his present college. I know transferring was a little more difficult at that time, and there were no graduate transfers, but the principles are the same, and he could have done it, if he had wanted to. And, Ben is not the only MAC player who was so good they had an immediate impact on the NFL team that drafted them. They undoubtedly could have been stars on ANY college team they had played for, but they chose to stay in the MAC. They were not too good for their respective schools. There is sort of a reverse elitism in these kinds of statements that I personally find troubling. Go OHIO!

Last Edited: 12/16/2019 10:55:19 PM by OhioCatFan

BillyTheCat
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RE: Comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

Posted: 12/16/2019 11:50:15 PM

OhioCatFan wrote:

LOL! OCF, there is a post floating around from you that Burrow would not make us better than we have.

In fairness to Allen, he did state that going to the MAC would prepare Joe for the NFL, which it would have, however, it would not have brought him every award out there for an offensive player, and a top 1-3 draft pick.

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